By Boluwaji Obahopo

LOKOJA—Executive Director, African Federation of Teaching Regulating Authority, AFTRA, South Africa, Professor Steve Nwokeocha, has charged government at all levels to intensify efforts in monitoring and assessing the performance of teachers and students to uplift the standard of education in the country.

Professor Nwokeocha gave the charge in Lokoja, yesterday, during Kogi State’s education summit organised by the state government in collaboration with Participation Initiative for Behavioural Change in Development and Action Aid Nigeria.

Nwokeocha said the inability of the Ministry of Education to perform its statutory functions of monitoring schools, assessing the performance of teachers and students had given birth to incessant failure of students in external examinations such as West African School Certificate Examination, WASCE.

He, therefore, urged government at all levels to brace up in matters that concerned education, saying no nation could achieve appreciable development without standard education.

According to him, “if you take a look at countries that have advanced in development today, you will observe that such countries have a robust education system from the basic to tertiary level.”

On her part, the Dean, School of Post-Graduate Studies, Kogi State University, KSU, Professor Mariyetu Tenuche, urged government to formulate a strategic plan for education sector.

She also charged state governments to always commit 26 percent of their budgetary allocation to education as specified by UNESCO, stressing that poor funding of education had been hindering the sector from growth.

The state Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mrs Rosemary Osikoya, in her remarks, said the aim of the summit is to review the progress made in the sector in the last two years and develop an agenda for the next two.